


crazy little thing called love

by hissingmiseries



Series: liv & rob [2]
Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Childhood Sweethearts, Coming Out, F/F, First Love, Fluff, Gen, Heart-to-Heart, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 12:49:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8446447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hissingmiseries/pseuds/hissingmiseries
Summary: It's the weirdest feeling. The descriptions waver - some say it's like drowning, others say it's like flying; Liv can't quite put her finger on it but it's somewhere in between that for her. Or, Liv meets a girl, and finds a supportive shoulder to lean on in her brother's husband.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have absolutely no idea what this is. I just kind of threw it together because I am such a bi/lesbian!Liv stan that I couldn't _not_ , and I'm in a permanent battle with the Oxford comma.

The new girl is a terror, everyone says. She's five feet four with bright red hair and Liv falls for her instantly.

They meet in a maths lesson. The teacher's just as bored and hollow-eyed as his pupils, delivering tutorials on trigonometry in a regional accent when the door opens and in she walks, a bag slung over her shoulder and her hair pulled back in a braid. There's only one seat left and it's next to Liv, in the back row where the problem children go.

"Sorry I'm late," she begins. Her voice is fair, light and pretty, somehow making the twinge of Yorkshire buried in it sound smooth. "I couldn't find the room."

"And you are?" the teacher asks, going over the register with a biro. 

"Sophie," she replies. "Williamson."

"Very well." He sounds less than delighted at the prospect of another student cluttering up his classroom, but alas, this is his job and fuck knows what he'd do instead. "Take the back desk next to Olivia, and get your equipment out. We're doing trigonometry."

She sits, dumping an armful of books on the desk and Liv watches her, offering a small smile when their eyes meet. God, she's pretty. Liv's used to being plain; her round face and mousy hair and the red blotches like juice stains on her cheeks contrast the other girls in her year group, though she's never seen the appeal of orange foundation and clumpy eyelashes that the Year Eleven boys seem to bow to. She's never been bothered. The new girl, however, looks different. She's pale as milk, her knuckles are dusted with freckles and her hair, dyed the same red that coats the world at Christmas time, twisted into patterns down her back is fresh. A pop of colour in an otherwise grey classroom on a shitty, boring Monday morning.

Liv falls. She falls fast.

 

x

 

"I heard she got permo-ed from Uredale," Gabby comments, licking ketchup from her thumb. They're behind the bike shed, wrapped up against the cold, smoking like chimneys. Liv's looking round for red, any shade of red, but it's all grey bricks for as far as the eye can see. "Something about calling a teacher a twat."

"I heard she burned a textbook." Jacob's next to her, still a gangly little bastard despite his recent growth spurt and the sudden appearance of facial hair that's beginning to peek its way through his skin. The hair on his head has adopted a life of its own, curling almost into a perfect perm, peppered with streaks of blonde. He jokes it's going white with exam stress. "Or her teacher. First one sounds more believable."

"What's she like? Liv? You're next to her in maths, aren't you?" 

"I dunno. We didn't talk." 

She'd been too nervous to talk, too nervous of something unspeakably stupid falling out of her mouth, so she'd kept silent and hoped Sophie would start some sort of conversation. She hadn't, though. Too focused on actually doing well in her studies.

"She's probably a bitch," Gabby says, spite to her voice. The eyeshadow below her brow is creasing and the shade of her lips washes out the rest of her face, the result of falling susceptible to the ridiculous makeup trends that circulate all schools, but she manages to pull it off in her own weird way. "Everyone from Uredale is a bitch."

That's when she shows up, almost as if she were conjured, a vibrant red against an industrial background. Her uniform's already been customised - rolled up sleeves, loosened tie - and Liv feels her stomach go strange at the way her pleated skirt sways around her knees. Jacob stands to attention as well, eyes shamelessly following her figure in that gross gawky teenage boy way. Gabby just scowls.

"'Scuse us," she says with a confidence like she's been there for years. "Where's the headteacher's office?"

"Got into shit already?" Jacob quirks an eyebrow. Sophie just smirks, eyes creasing at the corners.

"For once, no." 

She pulls her braid over her shoulder. The bobble catches the light, makes it dance. 

Liv stuffs the cigarette into her mouth to stop herself saying anything and blows smoke up into the air, forming smoke rings like bullet holes. It burns down her throat and blackens her lungs but she doesn't care. It gets her through the day.

"Those things'll kill you, y'know," Sophie says, eyes suddenly on Liv and Liv almost chokes. 

"I know."

The corner of her lips quirk up. "I'm Sophie."

"'m Liv."

They exchange bashful smiles and Liv's falling, falling, _falling_. It really is that easy.

 

x

 

She slots into their little clique easily, like butter off a knife. 

They spend Tuesday lunch on the cricket green. They can't get away with drinking so early but Gabby's nicked sandwiches from the shop, decent ones that taste of more than cardboard, and a two-litre bottle of pop that they pass around like vodka. It's freezing but the sun's out, colourless in the sky, warming their edges while the cold cuts into their cores. Jacob's doing last-minute homework, writing furiously. Gabby's reapplying her lipstick, using her phone as a mirror. Sophie's basking in whatever sun she can find, looking like a damn painting and Liv's staring like some lovesick puppy.

It's pathetic, honestly.

"It's fuckin' freezing," Jacob says, picking at the fibres of his jumper. Gabby curls into him. Love's revolting young dream.

"Gab, you got a ciggie?" Liv asks. "That'll warm us up."

She fishes the packet out of her blazer, tossing it over with a Zippo into Liv's lap; it lights with a spark and the end glows cherry red as Liv sucks, breathes in the tar and the poison and exhales it in shapes, wispy ones that dissolve into the atmosphere. They sit in a circle, a congregation of sorts, three of them knotted with history and one sitting at the edges, dipping a finger in to test the waters. Liv wants to warn her how choppy they are, how choppy they can be.

"Soph," Jacob pipes up, taking a swig from the bottle and passing it round. "What's the answer to number four?"

She crawls forward, peering over Jacob's shoulder at the paper on his lap, grass stains on her knees. "Eighteen. You just take that and times it by the numerator."

Their arms brush, too close for comfort. Liv grows queasy with every spark that passes between them. She takes in another lungful of smoke as a suppressant and manages to choke down the cough that threatens to betray her. Sophie glances up, wearing that smirk that weakens Liv's knees and crawls over, flattening onto her stomach across the grass.

"Terrible habit," she deadpans. "Gonna kill you."

Liv takes it from her mouth almost impulsively and hands it over. Sophie takes it, balances it between her teeth and Liv's on fire with all the feelings that a school-drowned fifteen-year-old loser can feel.

"Are ya doin' anythin' tonight?"

The question clunks from her tongue rather than rolls and once it's out there she can't take it back, no matter how much she wants to; her cheeks grow red, redder than they usually are, redder than Sophie's damn hair (it's in a bun today, strands falling loose and framing her face). Robert always said she was an open book, text too small for some people but clear as day to select others. 

"Hanging around school 'till five," she replies, handing the cigarette back. It's drained, too small. Liv stubs it out and tosses it. "Then catching the bus back home. Why?"

"Come 'ome wi' me, if ya like. There's fuck all to do but we could... I dunno, watch a film, or ya could 'elp me make sense of that 'omework we got today."

Gabby and Jacob exchange looks. _Liv never does homework_.

"Okay, sure."

The clouds crack open at that point and release rain, icy sheets of it. Liv's grateful for it.

 

x

 

They're in the back room of the Woolie, sat at the dining room table, a carpet of opened school books in front of them. Sophie's doing English, Liv's doing Maths. There's a packet of crisps between them and they're playing footsie like it's going out of fashion. It's innocent but Liv feels her skin flare with every contact, feels her heart stutter.

Aaron walks in first.

He's greasy from the scrapyard, hair flattened across his forehead like an oil spill. The rings glint on his finger, the original silver one now joined by a golden one since the ceremony, since the Sugdens claimed him for their own. There's been a glow to his skin since the wedding, one that has still yet to leave his cheeks and Liv's pretty sure it never will now, it's been there for so long. Maybe that's what love is. A colour that never fades.

"Who's this?" he asks at the shock of red hair, crossing the room to the kettle. 

"Sophie, from school," Liv says, accompanied by one of Soph's gentle butter-wouldn't-melt smiles that Liv's sure could get her out of jail if she ever needed it. It seems to work on Aaron, who takes down two mugs from the cupboard and offers a small smile back.

"Are you... are you doin'  _homework_?" he frowns when he sees what they're doing. "Bloody 'ell, are you feelin' okay?"

Liv scowls at him. Trust him to always be there - always there when she needs him, always there when she doesn't.

Robert arrives next. Her  _step-dad_. That feels weird to say. He's tidier, though clearly wind-bitten, and his hair stands on end like someone's just run their fingers through it, savouring the texture. Almost instinctively he moves to Aaron, like there's a magnetic attraction that draws them together, his hand slotting around his husband's waist like it's the most natural thing in the world. Liv glances up at them. They're two pieces from entirely separate jigsaws that somehow still fit together.

"Is she doing _homework_?" she hears Robert hiss, blowing across the surface of his tea. "Wow."

Sophie bites back a laugh, and Liv kicks her under the table.

Liv hopes she isn't one of those people who has to leave bruises to prove they love someone.

 

x

 

They do everything together. Liv isn't sure how or when it happens but Sophie gets her number and before they're long they're permanently bonded by text bubbles and overused emojis when not in the flesh. 

"What're you gigglin' at?" Aaron asks one day at the breakfast table. Her nose is buried in her phone, Robert's in a newspaper and Aaron's in a stack of heavily buttered toast. A trench opens where his brow furrows and though it's an innocent question, Liv can practically see the alarm bells flashing behind his eyes.  _BOY. BOY. BOY._ As if.

"Not got someone on the go, have you?" Robert joins in. Liv looks between them, scrunches her nose up. They have the gall to call _her_ childish.

"It's Soph," she explains.

"Always is," Aaron says, biting into his toast. Robert's look lingers on her from over his paper, but then he's hidden back behind it and Liv's grateful for no eyes on her. She looks back down at her phone, blush threatening to stain her face when the next message pops up.

**sophie williamson ( <3), 7:36am: ** _at least you're in most of my lessons 2day x_

It's nothing but it's something, she thinks. 

 

x

 

**sophie williamson, 11:09pm:** _liv are you awake x_

**liv flaherty, 11:10pm:** _i am now x_

 

**sophie williamson, 11:10pm:** _i need you x_

**liv flaherty, 11:10pm:** _what's wrong? x_

**sophie williamson, 11:11pm:** _can you get out the pub and down 2 the creek? x_

Liv looks at the time - 11:11 - and makes a wish that she can get out without the floorboards betraying her.

 

x

 

It's a hell of a hike to the creek but it's worth it when she arrives and Sophie's there. Her hair looks darker in the night, almost brunette, and she's ghostly white but she's there, twigs knotted in the wool of her jumper. Liv's actually made an effort, despite it being so late and it's too dark to see. She doesn't care.

"Hey," she greets her, dropping down beside Soph so their knees bump. "Brought drinks."

She smiles, cracking open the beer with a hiss and swallowing down half the can in an impressive gulp. Liv watches, adopting the concerned face.  _The_ Sugden-Dingle concerned face they all share, reserved for only the closest. "Thanks."

"What's up?"

"Oh, it's just- my dad." Another swig, another bitter smacking together of her lips. "Him and his bird are yelling the house down and I needed to get out."

"Know 'ow that feels. Kind of." Though Liv can't deny that her knucklehead brother and that mess of a husband of his are cut from the very same fabric, there are nights when they drop a stitch and the argument that ensues threatens to uproot the pub from its foundations. It's routine. They spend the next day close but not touching, having not forgiven each other yet, before eventually making up the way Aaron and Robert do - a process that's mentally scarring to overhear. "You alright?"

"I'm alright," she nods. "Just needed to get out. Be with you."

She smiles. Liv smiles back. They're always like this; that intimacy only teenage girls can reach, closer than most married couples. Liv wants it to be more, dreams of it being more. She still gets that knot in her stomach when she's around Soph, like butterflies but more intense. It's crippling.

"How'd your exam go?" Soph asks, leaning back on her elbows. 

"Shit," Liv says. "Like they all do."

(The next day she gets it back and sees a big fat  _B_ in the corner, scribbled in red ink, next to a smaller _78/100_. She almost hits the roof.)

Soph's phone buzzes three times. She skims the messages, the screen lighting up her face, before turning it off.

"I can't go back there," she mutters, sucking on her teeth.

"Stay at mine."

"You sure? Won't your brother kick off?"

"It's none of 'is business. An' I want ya to stay."

The whites of Sophie's eyes are extra white beneath the moon, against the silvery surface of the water. Her hair's fluid down her back, soft and inviting, and Liv wants to bury her hands in it like it's gold. Her best mate. Everything she wants.

 

x

 

They creep up the stairs to Liv's room; she points warningly to the floorboard outside Chas' bedroom that shrieks with any amount of pressure and closes the door extra carefully behind them. 

"What's it like, then?" Soph whispers, her shape a silhouette against the moonlight bleeding in through the ratty curtains. "Living in a pub."

Liv fishes through her drawers before pulling out a t-shirt and throwing it over. "Loads of free booze," she replies. "An' it's never quiet. Always sommat kickin' off."

"Isn't that just life in general?" Sophie turns her back, peels off her shirt and jeans and shrugs on the t-shirt that drowns the contours of her figure. 

"Shuddup and get in."

Soph obliges, crawling beneath the covers and brushing her ankles next to Liv's, warm and comforting. Liv's sure she feels her entire face redden.

"Night night," she whispers, throat dry, and Soph smiles.

"Night."

 

x

 

It's Robert that finds them like that.

Apparently they curl into each other as they sleep, threading each other's limbs together, clinging on for dear life like one of them's going to disappear at any moment throughout the night. They also sleep deeply; deep enough to still be unconscious by the time the school bus is pulling up outside.

"Liv, come on, you're gonna-" Robert begins, walking in uninvited like he always bloody does, before freezing.

It's been described to him before, what's it like seeing your child with their first special someone. He always thought it would be Jacob, to be honest; he remembers the looks they used to share, the defensive voice she used to front every time Jacob was mentioned, the too-quick dismissal of his name. Aaron always grew tetchy around it, obviously seeing a future of eloping or a teenage pregnancy. Robert just smiled, amused at Liv's irritated face.

He shuts the door quietly, makes his way back downstairs to his husband who's turning bacon over in the pan. It's a late start today - he can afford to cook.

"Where is she?" Aaron asks. 

"Curled up in bed with that Sophie."

Aaron freezes too, the bacon smoking at the edges. "You're shittin' me." Rob shakes his head. "She's _fifteen_."

"I don't think anything happened," Robert explains. "It looked innocent enough."

The look on Aaron's face is like a computer glitch, like he's overloaded and frozen with information; he doesn't know what to think about more, the fact that his little sister had managed to sneak someone into the house without any alarm bells going off or the fact that his little sister's sharing a bed with someone, his baby sister with the round cheeks and the absurd fear of feelings, of affection. The fact that's it a girl barely registers - hell, how could he say anything? - the fact that it's an actual human is what's throwing him off.

Rob speaks again, breaking the silence for Aaron has the chance to overthink things like he always does. "They need to get ready for school. They've already missed the bus, I saw it go past the window."

"They'll probably wag anyway," Aaron says. "You know what Liv's like."

"Liv's doing really well at school now. Maybe that Sophie's a good influence."

Aaron silences himself by drawing two plates from the cupboard and slamming them down onto the counter with a clatter that skins Robert's teeth.

 

x

 

Liv's in love. She's in love she's in love she's in  _love_. She's sure she is. She's read all the metaphors she can find and read every sugary description the poets have put to paper to confirm if what she's feeling is true and she can't find a quote that perfectly captures it yet but maybe she doesn't need one. It's the weirdest feeling. The descriptions waver - some say it's like drowning, others say it's like flying; Liv can't quite put her finger on it but it's somewhere in between that for her. She thinks it's like brightness; like peering over a hedge you were once too short to reach and seeing colours you've never seen before. That moment after you wipe your laptop screen down for the first time in months; that moment when you take your sunglasses off at the beach and the true blueness of the sea comes to life; that day in March where the sun moves from behind the clouds for the first time all year.

She kisses Sophie a lot nowadays. Their first one was clumsy, slightly drunken and hazy. The second one was at the creek, at  _their_ creek and something had shifted in Liv's bones and made her go  _oh._

It's all in short bursts. They're impulsive like that. Like fireworks; quick but bright.

"I'm not a _lesbian_ ," she'd said once, ruining the mood. "I know I like batterin' stuff at the scrapyard a-an' I'm not like the girls at school but that doesn't mean- we're mates, right?"

"'Course we are."

"Things aren't gonna get weird?"

"They won't," Soph had promised, before leaning in.

Mates. Fuck. They're more than mates, they both know it, but Liv's scared. Scared of putting her foot in it, scared of making it official in case she fucks it up and then has to go around life with a weight on her shoulders, knowing she fucked up something she loves, some _one_ she loves.

So it's better they stay mates.

It makes sense in her head, at least.

 

x

 

Robert is annoying observant with her. Oblivious as fuck with Aaron, but observant with her.

She's sat on her bed, legs crossed, finger hovering over Sophie's name in her phone when he walks into her room, again not bothering to knock; he's in that crumpled leather jacket and a floral shirt that doesn't suit him, but worst of all, he's got that dad face on.

"Ya want somethin'?" Liv asks, looking up at him without moving her head.

"A chat," he replies. "About the other day."

She pauses, glances up again with a look of dread in her eyes that Robert registers. "You either talk about it with me or Aaron's going to sit you down and try instead. I know which one I'd prefer."

Bloody Robert. Ever since he joined the Dingles he's adopted their relentless selflessness, their knack for telepathy. He and her brother share it, she's sure - they genuinely can read each other's mind and pick each other's webs apart, deconstruct each other with just a look. It's freaky, to be honest, but now Liv's been staying with them for over a year and it's given them time to turn their gifts on her; once upon a time, her hardened scowl was enough to ward them off, both of them too inexperienced with teenagers to approach her. Now they're used to it, naturally paternal, and though their love for her can be suffocating at times, beneath it all she's somewhat happy they can read her so easily. It keeps her from having to admit things, especially shit like _this_.

With a sigh, an admittance of defeat, Liv tosses her phone onto the sheets beside her and draw her legs up to give him room to sit. He does, pulling his hands from his pockets.

"Come on, then," he prompts. "What's going on with you two?"

She's put it into words before. She never used to be interested in writing but now Sophie's in her life, writing's all she seems to do. There's no diary (too high a chance of Noah finding it), no key and padlock, just scraps of paper she vandalises with feelings then burns until there's nothing but ash left of them. "I dunno."

He doesn't look unimpressed, just patient. "You like her?"

She nods, doesn't speak for fear of going on about her forever. 

"Okay," he says. "That's okay, you know. It's fine. It happens to everyone at some point - the whole teenage crush business-"

"It's more than that."

Robert softens at that, almost like he was waiting for it. "I know. I can tell. I mean, you go pink every time we talk about her, so..." He smiles when that pinkness stains her cheeks, bringing her out in a scowl. "Does she like you back?"

"I think so."

"Then what's stopping you?"

She sighs, her shoulders sinking.  _Every cell in my body._ "I dunno, I just... what if 'm just  _confused_? Y'know how people say it's just a phase an' all that- what if that's happenin' to me?"

"So what if it is?" He repositions himself, shifting about on her mattress so he can face her better, legs dangling off the edge and swinging like pendulums. "You're young, Liv, you don't need to go charging head first into this or making any decisions yet."

She chews on her bottom lip, the same way Aaron does when he's trying to pull things apart in his head. His words make sense; she's thought most of them before herself, though none of them landed with any gravity. "When did _you_ know? That ya liked guys?"

Now it's Robert's turn to go pink. His history is one of the things that Aaron warned her about.  _You might not like what you hear_  were his exact words - she remembers him feeding them to her one day after one of their infamous heated arguments, apparently born from one of Robert's throwaway comments he'd made that had harboured more venom that he'd realised and touched a nerve. That sounds like Robert: wandering blindly into situations he can't dig himself out of, not meaning to harm anyone but still managing to do it in the end. Maybe they're more similar that Liv had initially thought that time when she'd kneed him in the bollocks.

"I was your age, actually. Fifteen. It didn't go very well."

"Why not?"

He goes to say something but stops, clearly not trusting either her or himself to say it. "I fought it. Repressed it, for... well, the best part of another fifteen years. Yeah, exactly," he adds, catching the look on her face. "That's what I'm saying. There's... there's a reason Aaron and me haven't told you much about what we were like before you came along. There's a reason for it. It wasn't like we are now."

"Didn't ya hate each other?" she asks, arms folded across her chest. She's heard the talk in the village; they'd barely exchanged breaths for months after Robert had been gunned down. 

"Well, _he_ hated _me_ ," he says. "I was just wallowing in bloody self-pity, like I always do. I'm incredibly lucky that he took me back. But Liv-" He leans forward slightly, voice lowering to that soft, serious tone usually reserved for his husband. "It made me ill, repressing it like I did. I don't want that for you, neither of us do. And yeah, Aaron's probably going to be wanting to know every detail- where you're going, what you're doing, when you'll be back- but that's only because he loves you. And so do I. We just want what's best for you."

"How do I not mess it up?" 

"You won't." He places a hand on her ankle, warm. "Just go for it. Do whatever feels right."

She nods, eyes going to her phone. It buzzes.  _6 new messages from Sophie._ "Will ya tell Aaron for me?"

"Don't you wanna tell him yourself?"

She takes her phone, holds it up to show him. "I need to tell someone else first."

He glows with pride.

"Of course you do."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [tumblr](http://hissing-miseries.tumblr.com) if you want to say hello! :)


End file.
